Then someone in the crowd must have noticed that a vampire

was standing right beside him. He yelled, and a flurry of confusion erupted. People began drawing back, flinching from the sudden

appearance of the bogeymen all around them . . . and as their false sense of security shattered into chaos, and the crowd began to

stampede in all directions.

Faith in the sunlight wasn’t enough in the face of real danger,

apparently.

The choir was still singing, but it was falling apart, too, and

Fallon shoved through them to get to the microphone. “Don’t

run!” he shouted, and his voice rang out over the square, echoing

back from the buildings with their fluttering banners. “Don’t run

from them! Stand up to them! Fight for your town. You have the

advantage— they are few, and they are weak. Take Morganville

back!”

“Go,” Hannah said. “Get Michael and Eve out of there! I need

to make sure nobody does anything stupid.” She was already gone,

running flat out for two of her own cops, one of whom was draw-

ing his sidearm but not quite sure where to aim it.

Shane grabbed Claire’s arm and towed her quickly toward the

stage. That wasn’t easy, because a lot of the crowd was running in

that direction, as if Fallon’s presence was somehow going to pro-

tect them from about vampires gathering on the other side of the

folding chairs. Fallon was right— the humans outnumbered them.

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But the fear of vampires was so ingrained that it didn’t seem to be making a difference.

Myrnin was in front of the rank of vampires, Claire saw, but he

didn’t move forward. He held up his hand, and the others stayed

behind him, ready to move. She’d seen them in army mode before,

fighting the draug, but it was still eerie and terrifying, knowing

how much hell they could unleash.

“Myrnin,” Fallon said. His voice held so much, just in saying

the name— so much anger, and so much pain. “Come to mourn

your fallen?”

“This doesn’t have to end this way,” Myrnin said. “I have no

quarrel with you, Rhys. I never have.”

“You destroyed my life, spider. You preyed upon me and blackened my soul, and it took me hundreds of years to claw my way back to

the light. Well, I’ve done it. And now I’m going to drag you into the light, too.”

“I’m standing in the light now,” Myrnin said. “Lest it escaped

your notice. Not even a hat on my head. What makes you think I

fear it?”

Fallon pointed at the sizzling bodies of Amelie, Morley, and

Oliver. “Ask them,” he said. “They’re proof of your damnation.

Proof that the sun itself hates and rejects your kind.” He shifted

his gaze away from Myrnin to the people crowding around the

stage. “We wil stand in the sunlight and they wil be defeated! The sun makes us strong. Stand together!”